Friday, February 24, 2017

The streets are telling me that the White House has reportedly locked out are CNN, the New York Times, Politico, Buzzfeed, Time, AP and La Times. So far, the White House has hasn't offered any explanation for why.

At CPAC, trump doubled down on his “fake news” foolishness, claiming they're “the enemy of the people.”

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Fox News Channel's Alan Colmes has passed away at age 66 after a brief illness.

Colmes' wife, Jocelyn Crowley, issued the following statement:

Alan Colmes passed away this morning after a brief illness. He was 66-years-old. He leaves his adoring and devoted wife, Jocelyn Elise Crowley. He was a great guy, brilliant, hysterical, and moral. He was fiercely loyal, and the only thing he loved more than his work was his life with Jocelyn. He will be missed. The family has asked for privacy during this very difficult time.

It all started when American Conservative Union President Dan Schneider called out the Alt-Right movement.

Then, Richard held an impromptu conference outside the Potomac Ball Room. He accused the ACU president of making assumptions about him and his ideas, then claimed that his white boy movement will prevail. He further stated that he is considering running for office some day.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

the trump administration sent this guidance letter to schools, saying that they "decided to withdraw and rescind" the trans student protections "in order to further and more completely consider the legal issues involved."

You can read the letter below

BREAKING: DOJ/Education withdraw guidance on transgender students' rights "in order to further and more completely consider" the issues. pic.twitter.com/5nMr6tcAHY

So trump's administration is planning to rescind protections for trans students. As we heard yesterday, they think it should be up to the states. Well, there was deeper fight about how this would go down. Here's more:

A fight over an order that would rescind protections for transgender students in public schools has erupted inside the Trump administration, pitting Attorney General Jeff Sessions against the secretary of education, Betsy DeVos.

Ms. DeVos initially resisted signing off on the order and told President Trump that she was uncomfortable with it, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the internal discussions. The draft order would reverse the directives put in place last year by the Obama administration to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice.

Mr. Sessions, who strongly opposes expanding gay, lesbian and transgender rights, fought Ms. DeVos on the issue and pressed her to relent because he could not go forward without her consent. The order must come from the Justice and Education Departments.

Mr. Trump sided with his attorney general, these Republicans said, telling Ms. DeVos in a meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he wanted her to drop her objections. And Ms. DeVos, faced with the choice of resigning or defying the president, has agreed to go along. The Justice Department declined to comment on Wednesday.

This news quickly hit the streets and now, folks are responding:

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on President Donald Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ plan to rescind Title IX guidance for transgender students:

“By rescinding these protections, the Trump administration is compromising the safety and security of some of our most vulnerable children. Children, not ideology, should be the priority.

“LGBTQ kids face a disproportionate amount of bullying and violence at school, leading to increased levels of fear, anxiety or worse. Transgender students, like their peers, want to live and learn, laugh and love. They deserve the opportunity to do that without worrying whether the attorney general, secretary of education or president of the United States will protect them.

“Reversing this guidance tells trans kids that it’s OK with the Trump administration and the Department of Education for them to be abused and harassed at school for being trans. We want to be clear to those kids: It is not OK with your teachers or with us at the AFT, and we will continue fighting to protect you.”

Teen suicide attempts in the U.S. declined after same-sex marriage became legal.

Here's more

The research found declines in states that passed laws allowing gays to marry before the Supreme Court made it legal nationwide. The results don't prove there's a connection, but researchers said policymakers should be aware of the measures' potential benefits for youth mental health.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for all U.S. teens. Suicidal behavior is much more common among gay, lesbian and bisexual kids and adults; about 29 percent of these teens in the study reported attempting suicide, compared with just 6 percent of straight teens.

Laws that have the greatest impact on gay adults may make gay kids feel "more hopeful for the future," said lead author Julia Raifman, a researcher at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The measures also could create more tolerance and less bullying, making these teens feel less stigmatized. Those effects could also benefit straight teens but more research is needed to determine how the laws might influence teen behavior, Raifman said.

The study was published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics .

The researchers analyzed data on more than 700,000 public high school students who participated in government surveys on risky youth behavior from 1999 through 2015, the year the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

About 230,000 students reported being gay, lesbian or bisexual. The surveys didn't ask about transgender status. They included questions about suicide attempts, smoking and alcohol or drug use.

In 32 states that enacted same-sex marriage laws during the study, suicide attempts dropped 7 percent among all students and 14 percent among gay kids after the laws were passed. There was no change in suicide attempts in states without those laws.

Monday, February 13, 2017

Flynn's future at the White House had been the topic of discussion all day, after reports that he had talked about sanctions against Russia with the country's ambassador before Trump was sworn in.

Those reports contradict his earlier comments that he never discussed the topic with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during a series of phone calls the month before Trump took office.

Vice President Pence stood up for Flynn in January and told CBS that Flynn never spoke about sanctions during his calls to Russia.
The New York Times reported Monday night that Pence was angry that he defended Flynn and embarrassed by the information Flynn withheld from him.

Trump was silent for most of Monday on the embattled Flynn, but press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters he was conferring with the vice president.

I’ve already told my family, and it’s brought me closer to my father. He’s a Republican and a farmer in Iowa, and for years we just didn’t have very much to talk about. But after Trump’s inauguration, we chatted for two hours, bonding over the ridiculousness of lefties. But we also got serious: He told me that he is proud of my writing, and I opened up about my personal life in a way I never had before to him.

I’ve made some new friends and also lost some who refuse to speak to me. I’ve come around on Republican pundit Ann Coulter, who I now think is smart and funny and not a totally hateful, self-righteous bigot. A year ago, this would have been unfathomable to me.

I even went on a date this past week with a good-looking Republican construction worker, someone I previously would not have given a shot. I hope to find out that it pays to keep an open mind. And I hope that New Yorkers can be as open-minded and accepting of my new status as a conservative man as they’ve been about my sexual orientation.

This is the full, uncut 84 Lumber Super Bowl promotional film. In this short, a mother and daughter’s journey towards becoming legal American citizens. The original ad and banned from broadcast, but George Takei tweeted out the uncensored version

That commercial you saw with the little Mexican girl? It had been censored for depicting part of Trump's wall. Here's the full version. https://t.co/iR1J48sAHJ

John Dickerson asked “Do you think America is morally superior to Russia?”

Pence said:

“What we have in this new president is someone who is willing to engage the world, including Russia, and saying where can we find common interests that will advance the security of the American people, the peace and prosperity of the world, and he is determined to come at that in a new and renewed way.”

Thursday, February 2, 2017

A leaked copy of a draft executive order titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” was obtained by The Investigative Fund and The Nation yesterday.

The tea is, this draft points out the exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity, and it slights women’s access to contraception and abortion through the ACA.

Neil isn't a hater of LGBT rights, but he's not a huge fan either. Neil is a typical judge, nothing special about him really.

But here are a few things:

Judge Gorsuch, 49 — who was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in Denver, by President George W. Bush — is an originalist, meaning he tries to interpret the Constitution consistently with the understanding of those who drafted and adopted it. This approach leads him to generally but not uniformly conservative results. “Ours is the job of interpreting the Constitution,” he wrote in a concurrence last year. “And that document isn’t some inkblot on which litigants may project their hopes and dreams.”

While he has not written extensively on several issues of importance to many conservatives, including gun control and gay rights, Judge Gorsuch has taken strong stands in favor of religious freedom, earning him admiration from the right.

In two prominent cases, both of which reached the Supreme Court, he sided with employers who had religious objections to providing some forms of contraception coverage to their female workers.

He voted in favor of Hobby Lobby Stores, a family-owned company that objected to regulations under the Affordable Care Act requiring many employers to provide free contraception coverage. Similarly, he dissented from a decision not to rehear a ruling requiring the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns, to comply with an aspect of the regulations.

The Stuff

Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.